


Noblesse Oblige

by rekishi



Category: Royalty RPF
Genre: M/M, Slice of Life, Uniforms, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 14:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rekishi/pseuds/rekishi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several months after his wedding, Prince Carl Philip of Sweden ponders matters of domesticity, work ethics and the relationship with his new father-in-law.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noblesse Oblige

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carmenta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmenta/gifts).



> A treat, as the tension between William and his father were too obvious to pass up on. No canon-conflict intended.
> 
> Thank you to Ariss for the beta job.
> 
> Disclaimer: Never been real, probably never will be real. And the real William isn't as nice as this one, anyway.

Wills wasn't happy.

That probably wasn't quite an accurate assessment, or so thought Carl Philip - Prince of Sweden, Duke of Värmland but as of yet title-less in the United Kingdom of Britain despite having married her future king a few months ago. Because Wills _was_ happy. When they were together he was happy and content, he could relax, and they had amazing sex.

That the people and the press had calmed down about their wedding now, and their relationship in general, did help a lot. The two of them had been together long enough for everyone to wag their tongues and the wedding had been a formality, more or less, to give Carl a standing in the British royal family. And because it was simply traditional for the (future) sovereign to be married, however untraditional their marriage might be. On the other hand, that also was exactly where the trouble started.

While the Queen and pretty much everyone else had come to terms with the path Wills had chosen, his father the Prince of Wales was anything but happy or accepting, much less understanding, of the choices that had been made. It was a situation that led to more-than-awkward family gatherings, as recently at Christmas.

Christmas with the British was a bit odd, period. Carl could get into the silly, cheap gifts the family exchanged on Christmas Eve; what was the use to exchanging expensive gifts when theoretically you could buy the stuff for yourself whenever you wanted? He also didn't mind church on Christmas day, even if it was an Anglican service. But the black tie formal dinner on the same day had made him slightly uncomfortable. And then they played _charades_. Since Wills had never attended this festivity either, as only married couples were invited to that dinner (yet another reason why it was necessary for them to be married at some point), all the cooing and shushing he had tried on Carl had not been much use. And it was unnecessary, too, because while Carl didn't particularly _like_ events like that, he wasn't strictly opposed to them; it was just weird to do that within one's own family. Then again, who was he to say no to Wills using very enjoyable physical persuasion techniques?

Still, things were not made easier by everyone sitting at dinner and Prince Charles, Carl had never been offered to drop the title or assume a familiar form of address, making pointed remarks into their direction, the least of them being how inconvenient it was that the traditional male-female seating was not possible now. It made for short but strained silencing at the table and it had Wills try to apologise to him on his father's behalf after each such encounter, which was pointless and unnecessary. Or it should have been, at least, because Wills was the one taking the brunt of his father's displeasure, Carl himself was ignored whenever the circumstances permitted it.

And he knew it didn't stop at that. Over the years, he'd been approached by more than one journalist who had asked him if it was true that they were just play acting to annoy the Prince of Wales. He was well aware they were lucky the vultures asked at all, and that was only because towards the very beginning, when they'd only just been out to the public, one newspaper had printed a story along those lines had received the harshest criticism from gay rights movements, which had gained more momentum with their wedding. Wills was convinced his father set his aids to plant false information, and the thought was wearing visibly on him.

All in all, the situation was not improving at all.

Which made Wills unhappy whenever he'd run into his father. Thankfully that wasn't too often because the man spent a lot of time on his country estates while Wills was either in Wales or on London these days.

It wasn't even that everyone considered the Prince of Wales' position as abstruse, Princess Anne - Carl was allowed to call her Aunt Anne but didn't quite dare - had explained one day when they'd been invited to Gatcombe Park for lunch, riding and dinner. "He expected William to do his duty, no matter what he wanted or what he was convinced of," she'd said. "His duty would have been to find a nice girl, a true commoner would have been revolutionary already, and produce a few children. While there're enough people who'd see the monarchy abolished rather today than tomorrow, many others are still looking at us for proper conduct. But Charles should be aware that what he's doing is going against the wishes of his own sovereign, and that he's not exactly one to take the moral high ground on marriage."

Carl sighed and mailed a few photographs off to get printed and framed as birthday presents for the new cousins and other assorted people. Princess Anne hadn't criticised them for their choices, or William for his, but simply said it had to taken at face value and at least their relationship heightened awareness for these matters. Also, that theirs was a marriage neither of them would get out of, which was a point in their favour and certainly not to be disregarded in their family.

Very reassuring stance.

The sound of the apartment door falling shut sounded and William's voice rang through the rooms, "I'm home!"

Carl didn't move but kept staring at the figures on the screen, just to try and make sense of them. Wills would find him eventually.

Several minutes later, his husband appeared in the doorway to their shared study, leaning against the frame and regarding him for a few seconds in silence before speaking up. "If you shrug now," he drawled in his best imitation of Andrea, "the world will tremble."

Looking up, Carl smiled. "You've never read the book, have you?"

"No," Wills admitted and pushed away from the door to come towards him. "It's revolutionary. And American."

He bent down for a quick kiss, but Carl would have none of that. Once his husband tried to straighten he caught his tie and pulled him down again; Wills overbalanced and had to support himself with one hand on the desk, one on Carl's shoulder. They both grinned into the kisses and Carl released the tie eventually so Wills could lean back against the desk.

"They can't expose you poor, innocent British minds to revolutionary American literature?" he asked and stretched in his chair. His husband's gaze wandering to where that stretch made his t-shirt ride up and expose skin did good things to him indeed.

"No, we have to learn Wilde's witticisms by heart, so we can make everyone envious of our vast repertoire of answers for every situation," Wills responded and loosened his tie so he could pull it off and straighten it out. "Good thing you caught both ends, otherwise you might have had to find a way to tell Gran that you murdered the heir to the throne by asphyxiation."

"Sex game gone wrong?" Carl asked innocently and fluttered his eyelashes.

"That'll go over well. What are you doing?"

The change in topic was expected, so it didn't faze Carl too much. While sex in the afternoon certainly had its place, it wasn't to be recommended on a day they might still be called upon at, he checked the clock on his laptop, four in the afternoon. "Reading up on the material Matte-Marit sent over. Did you know that the rate of new HIV infections has started to rise again in the developed world after being on the decline for a decade?"

Carl had known that once his relationship with Wills entered the official, married stage, he'd be in the services of the British royal family, and as the spouse of the future King of the United Kingdom and sixteen independent Commonwealth states (a mouthful he really didn't care for) he couldn't simply not work. But as his duties in Sweden had been sporadic and his patronages didn't have a single purpose, the St James Palace staff had decided he should slowly develop a profile: related, yet distinguished from that of his husband.

Which was easier said than done. He'd watched Wills do his appointments for a few years now, but he was mostly active in the same areas his mother had been, and while that was all fine and well, Harry was doing similar things as well. That Carl still wasn't overly fond of press attention didn't help.

In the end, he - and Wills, too, for that matter - thought he'd found a good way, as he had one advantage the other members of the Windsor family didn't have: his outstandingly good relations with the other royal houses. He'd made an appointment with the Princess Royal (president of Save the Children), who had liked the idea of doing a few joint events with the Childhood Foundation, now mostly run by his sister Madeleine, and so he became the official liaison between the two organisations, which meant mostly partnered events. Princess Anne had also introduced him to one of her charities which ran a mechanics garage for young people and catered to his interests.

And then there was Mette-Marit and her work with UNAIDS, which was connected to the charities Wills was supporting and provided another continental link. And it wasn't a topic they could ignore, considering they theoretically fell into the high risk group (practically, that had never been a concern, of course).

In the end, between all of that and partnered events with Wills, as well as several other family members on occasion, he was occupied well enough. Not as full as his husband's in a non-flying week, yet, certainly not as packed as Princess Anne or Prince Philip's, yet it was enough to make sure everyone knew he was pulling his weight. There was a lot of behind the scenes, non-public work to be done, which would only be visible in the long run, but that was acceptable.

And there still was baby-sitting duty for his sisters and occasional appointments in Sweden, of course. Plus the Carrera Cup.

Wills grimaced and pushed away from the desk to make his way into the bedroom to get out of his suit. Carl trailed behind, deciding to take a break from screen work. "No. Why is that?"

"It seems that people are under the illusion that it's curable these days." Wills stared at him, half out of his suit jacket. Carl shrugged. "Don't worry, I'm not letting her put my face on a condom advertisement." When they were such poster children for safe sex, too.

Wills grumbled an agreement and hung up his jacket and slacks, throwing his dress shirt in the general direction of the bathroom. "Did anything else happen?" he asked and came over in jeans and his undershirt and dropped a kiss on Carl's lips, when he looked at him expectantly. They kissed for a few moments, then Carl shook his head.

"Harry behaved himself, at least no complaints from Alex. Your father's staying in Birkhall tonight, he had something up in that direction today and tomorrow. And we got a package from Andrea." He waggled his eyebrows and Wills laughed and dropped another, very chaste kiss on his cheek. Sex toy delivery from Andrea was sometimes fun, sometimes weird, and other times downright mood-inducing. "But I'll say we leave that for tonight. Do you have much left to do?"

Slowly, they made their way towards the study and Carl kept touching his husband's back ever so fleetingly.

"Emails. New on-call schedule. Sift through the next stack of RSVPs for the polo tournament and possibly growl at Guillaume." Carl raised a questioning eyebrow at that as they reached the room and sat down at their opposite desks. He had about half an hour of reading left and he might as well do it now when Wills was busy as well. "Amedeo sent me a text today and it sounded positively frustrated. It seems our endearing Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg isn't interested in watching Harry and me kick his little brother's arse."

"The temerity!" Carl exclaimed mockingly and startled a little when a stockinged foot slid over his own and up his calf, shoving the jeans upwards along with it. It wasn't an unexpected gesture but Wills always managed to catch him at a moment when it did surprise him. This was one of the advantages of having to share a study, especially since Wills had long legs.

Wills just smiled knowingly at his suddenly distant look. "It really is."

"You know, I got a similar email from our pet-archduke, detailing how exactly I was to try and get you to ask Guillaume to come talk with you." Actually, it had been an attempt at bribery, promising Carl to send pregnancy supplies of Belgian chocolate to Carl's sisters the next time they were expecting. Amedeo knew exactly how Carl felt about Guillaume after all, but Carl had found that things had settled a little for him since the announcement of those two had been on the table. Anyway, a bit of exaggeration didn't hurt, so he'd go with that. And his sisters could use the chocolate.

"Oh and how is that?" Wills asked and let his foot travel down again.

"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" Carl asked with a wink and retrieved his legs to tuck them under his chair, eyes back on the computer. The sudden shift from their playful banter made Wills grumble a little, but he took up the stack of envelopes that had been delivered from the mail room earlier, all slit open already to check for dangerous contents, and began entering agreements and declines into his spreadsheet.

They worked in companionable silence, only punctuated by the sounds of typing and Wills occasionally reading out a note attached to the RSVP cards.

"Would you like to spend a weekend in Lincolnshire?" he asked suddenly, eyes on his laptop screen but looked over quickly.

"Sure? What's in Lincolnshire?"

"A friend... Someone I went to Eton with. We haven't run into each other in years, but have been shooting emails back and forth occasionally. Anyway, he invited a bunch of us to his family's estate. It seems a drag hunt will be involved. I can decline, if you're not interested," Wills offered.

But Carl shook his head. One of the minor problems they'd run into once they'd come out was that they'd thrown a fully formed relationship into their individual circles of friends, without there having been a time when things might be accommodated for. That a lot of William's friends had grown up in the English peerage system while most of Carl friends in Sweden were well-off but not noble in the aristocratic sense didn't help with adjusting, but they'd managed. "I'm rather more surprised about you going on a drag hunt voluntarily."

"This is the closest we get to fox hunting these days, it serves the purpose. And we don't smell of blood all evening," Wills explained and he had a point. While flushing and shooting on deer and birds was no problem, fox hunting been forbidden in the UK for a while now. The appeal certainly was different and a drag hunt was less a matter of tradition than a social get together.

Humming, Carl leaned his chin onto his hands in contemplation. "I take it he invited both of us and he knows I'm not a woman so I won't be faced with a bunch of you Etonians exchanging inside jokes and will have to rely on the poor-Swedish-prince-doesn't-understand-English routine?"

Wills snorted. "Which routine? You pulled that exactly once, and even the _Sun_ 's staff isn't stupid enough to believe that. And he says explicitly with spouses. Also, I don't think there's a soul in the country left who might believe you a woman. So we're going?"

"We're going," Carl confirmed and got up. He was sick of sitting behind the desk all day. If these things had been easier to facilitate in London, he'd have gone for a run but figured the security staff wouldn't be thrilled to have to jog after him in the darkening streets of the city and he didn't fancy Buckingham Park after dusk. So he stepped behind Wills and dropped a kiss on his head, next to the bald spot his husband simply chose not to acknowledge. "Any wishes for dinner?"

Wills checked his watch and leaned back his head to look at him. "It's early."

Carl raised a hand and started petting softly. "I thought I'd take out the car and make a quick dinner run. Much as I appreciate having staff that cooks, it's still very...British."

"Take out will be British, too," Wills said and caught his hand.

"That's different," Carl answered but was at a loss to explain it. While he didn't mind the modern British dishes (there always would be the more traditional cuisine which just wasn't for him) and he'd been in the country long stretches of time before, he sometimes just needed the break. And Wills was busy anyway, now, and there were better things to do than playing solitaire until he was finished.

His husband frowned up at him and kissed his hand. "Do I need to get worried or is this one of your moods?"

Smiling, Carl bent down and delivered a proper kiss. "I've been cooped up all day reading about mortality rates and a spreading pandemic, I need some distraction. So, Thai?"

"Thai sounds okay. Do you need an escort to the door?"

Carl smirked and let go of his husband. "I think I can manage," he remarked on his way out of the room.

***

If Carl had known that Thai food would make Wills push him against the wall, they would have had it regularly since four years ago. (Or maybe it was the unidentifiable object in Andrea's package, not that it really mattered.)

"I didn't know you could be this bossy," he remarked appreciatively and leaned his head further back to give his husband better access to his neck, where he was trailing licks and kisses downward, pulling the neck of Carl's t-shirt askew to reach more skin.

"You've seen me on a flight deck," Wills reminded him. Which was true, Carl did accompany him to his RAF tours every so often when on-call duty coincided with a few days of empty schedule or preparatory work only. Spouses were permitted on base and accommodations were made for sleeping quarters, and the Welsh coast offered advantages over the stuffy atmosphere in London.

"That's," Carl swallowed and shuddered when a hand found its way under his clothes and started pushing to get them off, "that's different. That's your job." There was something to be said for Wills pushing his thigh between his legs, and Carl had no illusions how this would end tonight. He didn't mind. Their usual dynamics worked for both of them quite well, but neither of them was opposed to switching their roles. As long as it felt good and they both were comfortable, nothing was off limits.

Wills claimed his mouth again, motions quite insistent now, but doing it against the wall definitely was not an option. He didn't give in to the temptation of completely surrendering, which made Wills pull back eventually and throw him an exasperated look.

But Carl just smiled and pressed tiny kisses to his husband's lips, which were reciprocated immediately, but before it could grow heated again, or more heated considering Wills still had his thigh in a rather unambiguous position, he slung his arms around his neck. "Bed?" he murmured. "Where there is lube and where we can be horizontal and any tell-tale stains will be taken care of with the next laundry and where there are much less very impractical clothes in the way?" He punctuated every suggestion with a kiss.

With a regretful sigh, Wills let go of him enough that he was not quite pinned against the wall any longer, but kept two fingers hooked into his belt loops to pull him forward. "Horizontal sounds good. Lube sounds better. Stains...at least my father wouldn't come up here anymore, then."

Wills _could_ be delightfully evil, but Carl only laughed quietly and let himself be pulled along (not that he wouldn't have followed voluntarily, but this did have its own appeal).

***

A long while later Wills lay deliciously heavy with his head pillowed on Carl's chest, idly tapping out his heartbeat on the sheets. Meanwhile, Carl sifted his hand through his husband's hair, scratching his nails lightly over the scalp.

"Got your new schedule?" he asked quietly when Wills turned his head to press a kiss to his skin.

"They mailed it over," Wills confirmed and shifted so they could look at each other. "Why?"

"Just thought it'd be nice to come with you again, or at least visit. And I was wondering about June." June being the month with the most official appearances for the British royals together, but Wills usually missed a few due to his flying schedule and Carl never been obliged or even allowed to go to all of them due to his unofficial status. This year was different.

Wills hummed. "You get to miss Ascot," he said with a grin, then chuckled. "But you're not getting around watching me on Garter Day."

Groaning, Carl rolled his eyes to the ceiling. That ridiculous Garter outfit, at least no one had forced him into that so far. Although Wills had already said it was only a matter of time until he'd have to. The Prince Consort always was the first Royal Knight, so he'd not be spared all his life, only until things changed. As Charles, when he was King, probably would not knight Carl, he consoled himself with there being plenty of time yet. "Trooping the Colour?" he wanted to know.

"Oh, we're doing that. It'll look weird if we're not there, we need to be seen. And I, of all people, can't stay away. Look at it this way: you get to see me in uniform." Admittedly, that did have its perks. For both of them, as Wills added, "And I get to see _you_ in uniform."

That made him laugh. "Such a shame that it won't be the black one."

The naval uniform they shoved Wills into whenever he was to act as the Commodore-in-Chief of the Submarines made him look outstandingly dashing. So much that the first, and so far only, time they'd both had to show up in their respective naval outfit, they'd arrived a couple of minutes late because more physical needs got in the way of things. It had been a winter manoeuvre the Swedish and British Royal Navy had set up for them to observe, in order to show that not only their respective princes enjoyed a good 'relationship'. Their initial absence had not remained unnoticed of course, but no one had remarked on it outright.

Unfortunately, Wills was with the Air Force rather than the Navy, so for official purposes, the blue uniform was taken out. Still better than the flight overalls he wore on base, but that was something Carl had long gotten used to.

"It won't be the black one," Wills conceded and pushed himself up to bury one hand in his hair and kiss him. "Any more questions?"

"The rest of the month?"

"June?"

Carl nodded.

"Free. Well, no flying duty. Why?"

He contemplated the benefit of keeping quiet for now but decided against it in the end. "I was wondering if we could go to Sweden for Midsommar. A few days of revelry without the sun ever setting properly."

Wills rested his head on the pillow but brought his arm around to pull them closer together. "Sure, why not?"

Sighing, Carl leaned in for another kiss and a nuzzle. "Because it's your birthday weekend and that maybe you should stay in the country of which you are a prince. Not to forget the heir to the throne."

But his husband just waved off. "No one cares whether I'm here or not. They wouldn't care if I was the direct heir, as it is I'm only second in line. So, midsummer."

"Midsommar," Carl corrected. This whole learning Swedish business had paid off for Wills in terms of understanding what everyone was saying now, but he had a tendency to only listen and respond in English instead of Swedish. "Are you sure? Your father will have a lot to say about conducting yourself in a way that conforms to your position and the like."

"Carl," Wills said earnestly.

"Hm?"

"I don't care what my father says." And suddenly, there was a _very _distracting hand on a certain part of his anatomy. "Now shut up."__


End file.
